Tomorrow is the big day of course and the children are waiting with baited breath.
Which if you think about it is probably one of the reasons those precious gifts from God can be so darn annoying at this time of year. Who want to go around with worm/cricket breath or be around that?
To quote Peter David: But I Digress…
What used to be such a time of joy for me has really become a trial in recent years. I have come to dread and despise the “Holiday Season” in the US. While the secularists and multi-culturalists are busy taking God and especially Christ out of the public life, they are at the same time trying to substitute something else. Outside the holidays it is generally an earth worship thing it seems, while during the holidays, it becomes the god of consumerism.
It’s this last one that I hate the most. It makes the time of year we should be reflecting on the coming Holy Day into nothing more than an orgasmic expression of what’s in it for me? Sure we go out and buy LOTS of gifts for others, but now we also have the new thing of buying something special for ourselves for some people. We try to out do last year’s gifts. We try to be a better giver than last year. We try to overcompensate for the puny gift we gave Aunt Marge with something bigger.
The giving just isn’t about charity anymore. Faith, Hope and Love (or charity if you please) are the three great theological virtues. Of these St. Paul tells us that Love (charity) is the greatest and that the other two without it are nothing. We are nothing.
Mrs. Fric and I have resolved to make Christmas different from now on. We aren’t sure how we are going to do it or how to transition the children on it, but I do not want to spend another year feeling guilty about participating in the consumerism run amok. We want our family to experience a true Advent season and a true Christmas season. While I believe that Easter is the most important Holy Day, Christmas is right up there. We need to be grateful and remember how awesome it is that God Himself would humble… Nay… Humiliate Himself to become one of US. Only His Divine Love for us is cause for it. We certainly aren’t worthy of it. Yet He did it anyway.
Let’s all try to remember this every day, but especially this time of year.